At another
campfire, the fifth and final campire
scene [in the last scene before the
film's climax], Wyatt and Billy exchange
deep thoughts about the freedom they
have found on their journey pursuing the
big drug score - "the big money." Their
rootless, drifting pursuit of the
American dream and the promise of sex,
drugs, and rock 'n' roll has been
questionably successful, dissatisfying,
transitory and elusive. Billy is unaware
of the cost of their trip to his own
soul. Wyatt believes there may have been
another less destructive, less
diversionary, more spiritually
fulfilling way to search for their
freedom rather than selling hard drugs,
taking to the road and being
sidetracked, and wasting their
lives.
The ending of the film
is remarkably bleak, cynical and
fatalistic. On one of the last stretches
of roadside where American industry has
not yet sprawled, two armed rednecks in
a small pickup truck think they'll have
some fun with the two bikers:
Driver: Hey, Roy, look at them ginks!
Roy: Pull alongside, we'll scare the
hell out of 'em.
Roy reaches back and takes down his
mounted shotgun from the back of the cab
and aims it out the window at Billy:
Want me to blow your brains out? (Billy
obscenely gestures with his 'finger')
Why don't you get a haircut?
A sudden shot-gun blasts Billy in the
stomach and he is mortally wounded. His
bike rolls and skids down the
road.
Middle America's hatred
for the long-haired cyclists is shown in
the film's famous ending. When Wyatt
speeds down the road to seek help for
his dying friend, the rednecks turn
around and drive toward him - gunfire
again blasts through the window and
Wyatt's bike flies through the air.
[Significantly, Wyatt's dead body
doesn't appear in the final scene.] The
closing image (of the earlier
flash-forward) is an aerial shot
floating upwards above his motorcycle
which is burning in flames by the side
of the road.
Death seems to be
the only freedom or means to escape from
the system in America where alternative
lifestyles and idealism are despised as
too challenging or free. The romance of
the American highway is turned menacing
and deadly. The river - which extends to
the hazy horizon - is the final image of
the film before a fade-out to black. The
ballad is about a man who only wanted to
be free like the flowing river amidst
America's natural landscape:
"The river flows, it flows to the sea
Wherever that river goes, that's where I
want to be....
Flow river flow, let your waters wash
down....
Take me from this road to some other
town.....
All I wanted was to be free.....
And that's the way it turned out to
be..."
MARLON
ON HIS CHARACTER 'JOHNNY' IN "THE WILD
ONE": "I
viewed Johnny as a man torn by an inner
struggle beyond his capacity to express
it. He had been so disappointed in life
that it was difficult for him to express
love, but beneath his hostility lay a
desperate yearning and desire to feel
love because he'd had so little of it. I
could have just as easily been
describing myself.
It seemed perfectly
natural for me to play this role."
It definitely seemed natural on screen.
And in 1954, a generation identified
themselves with Johnny and Brando.
Brando in fact was, and is, practically
synonymous with Johnny and "The Wild
One." Although "The Wild One" wasn't a
huge
box office success, it did have a cult
following, and was very popular with the
youth of the times. Brando's character
was the quintessential rebel. A rebel
without a peer was Brando. When asked
"What are you rebelling against?" Johnny
simply replies, "Whatta ya got?" Brando
projected the image brilliantly. The
dark glasses, leather jacket, the cocky
walk. The shots of Brando in the film
also helped to enhance this image.
Practically all the shots in
the film
are pin-up poster style. Shots of Brando
brooding, staring impassively, slamming
beer bottles onto a bar and letting the
foam flow over the rim. Oh yes, Brando's
talent for innuendo was completely
explored in this movie, leading to a
perfectly crafted rebellious, macho,
sexually powerful image. An image that
Brando would never be able to live
down.
He even knew it at the time. Supposedly,
Brando made a comment at the time of
"The Wild One", saying he hoped he
wouldn't be old and gray and still have
peole asking him where his "hot rod"
was. Well, he predicted right. Because
now, at 70 years old, NO ONE will let
Brando grow old in peace. Every time the
man tries to make a movie these days,
the critics ignore the performance and
make nothing but fat jokes. Practically
the only posters we see of Brando these
days, are the classic shots from "The
Wild One." Shots of Brando, and of
course...his hot rod.
An interesting side note to "The Wild
One", concerns another Hollywood
"rebel", James Dean. It seems that when
Dean first saw "The Wild One", he wanted
more than anything to be like Brando. He
inundated Brando with phone calls, and
Brando then introduced Dean to his
shrink.
Brando explains their
bizarre
relationship in his autobiography:
"We were both midwestern farmboys who
were recast as rebels. He mimicked not
only my acting but also what he believed
was my lifestlye." Brando does however
admit that Dean came into his own as an
actor before his death: "...by the time
he (Dean) made 'Giant', he was no longer
trying to imitate me...He was awfully
good in that last picture and people
identified with his pain and made him a
cult hero. We can only guess what kind
of actor he would have become in another
twenty years. I think he could have
become a great one."
But never as great as the original
rebel...The Wild One
himself...
The Wild One
(1953) A Review
The Wild One is a landmark film of 50s
rebellion. The film begins with the
opening title, shown over a long shot of
an empty country road:
This is a shocking story. It could never
take place in most American towns - but
it did in this one. It is a public
challenge not to let it happen again.
A voice-over narration of the main
character introduces the story:
It begins here for me on this road. How
the whole mess happened, I don't know.
But I know it couldn't happen again in a
million years. Maybe I could have
stopped it early. But once the trouble
was on its way, I was just going with
it.
Mostly, I remember the
girl, I, I can't explain it - sad chick
like that. But somethin' changed in me.
She got to me. But that's later, anyway.
This is where it begins for me right on
this road. Gradually, the tiny blurs on
the horizon turn into figures of 40
black leather-jacketed cyclists, who
roar directly into the screen. The
motorcycle gang rides in a tightly-knit
squadron formation, led by Johnny
(Marlon Brando), the narrator, a surly,
rebellious sort, wearing the trademark
black-leather jacket, dark shades, white
T-shirt, skin-tight jeans, black gloves
and boots.
His motorcyle gang, the Black Rebels
Motorcycle Club (BRMC), roars into a
motorcycle race competition/meet,
looking for trouble, disrupting the race
by crossing the track and taunting
officials. They are quickly thrown out
of the competition by a policeman and
told to "Hit the road...get goin'," but
not before stealing the second-place
prize trophy (the first place prize
trophy was too big to carry), which is
handed to Johnny, who straps it to his
handlebars. When one of the police asks
where the gang is from as they speed
away, a race official replies:
I dunno - everywhere. I don't even think
they know where they're going...Ten guys
like that give people the idea everybody
drives a motorcycle is crazy. What are
they trying to prove anyway?
The cop answers: "Beats me. Lookin' for
somebody to push 'em around so they can
get sore and show how tough they
are...They usually find it someplace,
sooner or later."
They invade the small, sleepy town of
Wrightsville and continue to cause havoc
by dragging on the main street for
beers. One of the gang members instructs
everyone: "Last guy to the door of that
joint buys beers. Last guy in buys."
During the drag race, they force old man
Art Kleiner's (Will Wright) car into a
light pole, and one of the bikers breaks
his ankle in a fall. The town's sheriff
Harry Bleeker (Robert Keith) is
overwhelmed by the disturbance and
ineffective at stopping the escalating
rowdiness.
While his fellow
bikers are out on the street, Johnny
meets and is drawn to the young
attractive, clean-cut cafe waitress,
Kathie Bleeker (Mary Murphy) in
Bleeker's Cafe, the local restaurant and
bar owned and operated by the town's
sheriff.
In the restaurant, Johnny puts money in
the jukebox and drinks his beer straight
from the bottle, carrying his prize
trophy in his other hand. She asks about
the trophy, knowing that it is from the
racing competition. He offers her the
stolen trophy on the counter, hoping to
impress her, but she refuses: "You don't
give something away just like that, not
unless you knew a girl real well and you
liked her." When one of his gang members
asks if they are going to stay around
town longer, he tells them they are, and
then looks up at Kathie, obviously
interested in spending more time to get
to know her better.
As his gang members are drinking and
carrying on outside and then in the bar
section of the cafe, she engages him in
conversation in the restaurant,
questioning him about where the bikers
are going, and what do they do when they
ride around:
Kathie: What do you do? I mean, do you
just ride around? Or do you go on some
sort of a picnic or something?
Johnny: A picnic? Man, you are too
square. I'll have to straighten you out.
Now, listen, you don't go any one
special place. That's cornball style.
You just go. (He snaps his fingers.) A
bunch of us gets together after all week
it builds up, you just...the idea is to
have a ball. Now if you gonna stay cool,
you got to wail. You got to put
something down. You got to make some
jive. Don't you know what I'm talking
about?
Kathie tells him she knows what he means
and can relate: "My father was going to
take me on a fishing trip to Canada
once...We didn't go."
As he and his boys are guzzling beer and
dancing with some of the ladies in the
bar, one of the ladies dancing with one
of his pals questions him:
Hey, Johnny, What are you rebelling
against?
While tapping out a beat on the top of
the jukebox, he responds:
What've you got?
Johnny pulls Kathie to him and tries to
dance with her, but she walks away,
explaining that she doesn't dance very
well.
When Johnny learns that Kathie is the
sheriff's daughter when she calls the
sheriff "Dad," she asks why he tried to
act so rudely toward her father. He
snaps back: "I don't like cops," grabs
the trophy from the counter, and
prepares to leave with his gang.
Just as they are beginning to leave
town, an outlaw bike gang arrives, led
by a crazy biker named Chino (Lee
Marvin), a former member of Johnny's
gang who broke away and formed his own
rival group.
Chino taunts his
ex-leader with insults, including: "I've
been looking for you in every ditch from
Fresno to here, hopin' you was dead." He
steals the trophy off Johnny's bike and
puts it on his own bike. Johnny orders
him to take it off, and pushes him off
the bike. Chino accuses Johnny of
stealing it rather than winning it.
Chino hands the prized object to Kathie
just before preparing to fight Johnny
and overdramatically describes what will
happen:
Now watch closely, see how the timid
maiden of the hill clutches the gold to
her breast, and see how she fights back
a tear, while her hero bleeds to death
in the street.
A rough fist-fight breaks out. During
the savage brawl, townspeople gather
around to watch. One of the bystanders
asks: "What happened? What are they
fighting about?" An older man Jimmy
(William Yedder) replies: "Don't know.
Don't know themselves probably."
One of the foolish townspeople, Charlie
Thomas (Hugh Sanders), no better than
the troublesome bikers, tries to drive
his honking car through the rumble and
shakes up one of Chino's bikers. The
angry bikers pull the driver out of his
car and turn his car over. Sheriff
Bleeker, feeling pressured into doing
something, arrests Chino and starts to
take him to jail.
Johnny [Brando] and Chino
[Lee Marvin], leader of rival biker gang
square off in center of small
town
Johnny asks
the sheriff why the driver wasn't
arrested too. At that point, the sheriff
asks Johnny to do him a favor and leave
town. Johnny, with a long-standing
hatred for cops, replies: "I said I
don't make no deal with no cop." When
things start breaking up, Johnny has a
few words with his old girlfriend
Britches (Yvonne Doughty), now a member
of Chino's gang.
Johnny decides to stay on in the town,
and goes back inside the Cafe to talk to
Kathie, who has his trophy. He tells her
that her father ought to have arrested
the driver, because he was also at
fault. Kathie explains that her father
didn't arrest one of the townspeople
because he was afraid of making a
mistake and losing his job.
She feels both Johnny and her father are
fakes:
Kathie: He's the town joke and I'm stuck
with him. He doesn't got any business
being a cop. No more than you have with
that [fake trophy]. He's a fake like
you. Well, you've impressed everybody
now, big motorcycle racer. Why don't you
take that back so they can give it to
somebody who really won it?
Johnny (irritated): Who are you? Some
girl who makes sandwiches or somethin'?
Your father wears that hat says he's a
big important man. You start telling me
what to do. Nobody tells me what to do.
You keep needlin' me, and if I want to,
I'm gonna take this joint apart. And
you're not gonna know what hit you.
Johnny goes into the bar and orders a
beer. A gang member asks: "Hey, Johnny,
what's the pitch, we leavin'?" Johnny
replies: "Not just yet."
When night comes, tension mounts with
the two motorcycle gangs in town. To
administer proper justice, Johnny's gang
goes to the house of the driver who
wasn't arrested and drag him to the
police department jail, and put him in
the cell with Chino.
At the
same time, Chino's gang goes on a
rampage of destruction, cutting off
telephone line connections at the main
switchboard.
While a lot of partying and drinking is
going on in the bar, Johnny runs into
his old girlfriend Britches outside, who
begs to talk to him, still pining for
him and his attention. He responds to
her: "What do you want me to do, send
you some flowers?" Instead, Johnny is
looking for Kathie, who has left the
cafe to go warn her father about the
dead phone lines. Meanwhile, Chino's
gang has entered Mildred's Beauty Salon,
and destroyed much of its
insides.
The bikers see Kathie ("Johnny's girl")
walking by and begin to terrorize her.
They chase her on their bikes and then
circle around her, until Johnny, in a
memorable scene, comes by and rescues
her from danger by telling her to "get
on" behind him on his huge bike, as he
roars out of town with her. Under the
spell of the moonlight, they ride
together, her hands around his waist,
hair blowing wildly.
He takes her to safety in a little park,
and then forcibly grabs, kisses and hugs
her. Almost passive or dazed, she says:
Kathie: I'm sorry. I can't fight back.
Too tired. It would be better wouldn't
it? Then you could hit me.
Johnny (berating her attitude toward
him): You think you're too good for me.
Nobody's too good for me. Anybody thinks
they're too good for me, I make sure I
knock 'em over sometime. Right now. I
can slap you around to show you how good
you are. And tomorrow, I'm someplace
else and I don't even know you or
nothing.
Kathie: Do you want to?
Johnny: I wouldn't waste my time with a
square like you. What do I want to knock
myself out for? I'm goin' to take you
back and dump you. Come on, where're you
going?
Kathie (desiring him, she softly
replies): Johnny. (She touches his arm.)
Johnny: Quit that.
Kathie: It's crazy isn't it? You're
afraid of me. I don't know why, but I'm
not afraid of you now. You're afraid of
me.
Johnny (disbelieving): I'm afraid of
you? Are you cracked? Come on, get on.
Kathie (walking closer toward him): I
wanted to touch you. I wanted to try
anyway.
Johnny: Try what?
Kathy: I don't know. I wanted to make it
the way I always thought it would be
sometime - with somebody. The way I
always thought it might be. You're still
fighting, aren't you? You're always
fighting. Why do you hate everybody?
Kathie continues to ramble, describing
how she has never ridden on a motorcycle
before, a fast and scary but good
experience for her. She has often
dreamed about leaving her depressing
routine lifestyle by taking off from
town with someone she meets and has
coffee with in the cafe.
She
asks him for the trophy:
Kathie: Johnny, you were going to give
me that statue. Will you give it to me
now?
Johnny: Why?
Kathie: I don't know. I just wondered if
you still wanted to give it to me,
that's all. It's crazy.
Johnny: What did you want this guy to
take you, this guy who had a cup of
coffee?
Kathie: I wish I was going someplace. I
wish you were going someplace. We could
go together.
When Johnny doesn't respond to her, she
begins crying and hugs him. Then
embarrassed, she runs away, and slaps
him when he chases and catches up to her
on his bike. She breaks free and flees
again, crying.
One of the townsfolk witnesses the
incident and misunderstands, assuming
that Johnny is intending to rape her. He
is attacked on his bicycle by a
vigilante mob and held while being
brutally beaten up. Johnny defies them:
"My old man used to hit harder than
that." Kathie, who witnessed the attack
on Johnny, begs her father to stop the
violence. They arrive where the beating
is taking place, but the mob doesn't
want the sheriff to interfere. They
explain what they are doing to teach him
a lesson: "Pounding a little respect for
law and authority into this guy's thick
skull." Sheriff Bleeker tries to break
up the mob, explaining: "This boy is in
my custody. If he's done anything to
deserve punishment, he'll get it. But in
the right way and not from
you."
Johnny escapes and
finally gets back to his bike.
As Johnny tries to leave town, he
receives another angry response from a
second citizen's mob. Someone tosses a
tire iron at his bike's wheel spokes,
causing him to be thrown free of his
bike, and causing the bike to go out of
control and inadvertently strike and
kill an elderly pedestrian Jimmy. The
angry townspeople have now become a
lynch mob, but are held in control by
county Sheriff Singer. Johnny is
detained, and order is restored to the
town, but Johnny faces possible
manslaughter charges.
At the subsequent hearing, Johnny
protests his innocence of manslaughter
charges: "I didn't kill nobody." Kathie
comes to Johnny's defense, explaining
that she doesn't think it was his fault.
Sheriff Singer asks if she has any
proof, and then senses something between
them and asks: "You haven't fallen for
this fella, have you?" Kathie looks up
and says, "No, no I couldn't."
Uncle Frank Bleeker accuses Johnny of
attacking Kathie in the park. Kathie
defends him vigorously:
No, no, no, listen, Uncle Frank's all
wrong. He helped me. They went after me
on motorcycles...I wasn't trying to get
away from him. I was trying to get
away...
Frank also testifies that he saw someone
throw a tire iron at Johnny's bike, and
that Johnny is innocent of the charges.
Sheriff Singer lectures Johnny just
before letting him go:
I don't get you. I don't get your act at
all, and I don't think you do either. I
don't think you know what you're trying
to do or how to go about it. I think
you're stupid, real stupid, and real
lucky. Last night, you scraped by, just
barely. But a man's dead on account of
something you let get started, even
though you didn't start it. I don't know
if there's any good in you. I don't know
if there's anything in you. But I'm
gonna take a big fat chance and let you
go.
Johnny is ordered to be set free and is
given his trophy back. The Sheriff
prompts him to say thank you:
Don't you want to say anything to these
people? What's the matter? You been hit
over the head so often you don't know
when you're getting a break? You could
at least say thank you.
Though grateful for the unexpected
kindnesses from Kathy and the others, he
is unrepentant and unable to say "thank
you." Kathie explains: "It's all right.
He doesn't know how."
The gang of bikers is ordered to never
enter the town again by Sheriff Singer:
Every one of you monkeys is down in my
book, and every stick of damage around
here will be paid for. You've got ten
minutes to clear out. Stick your nose
back in this county, any of ya, and
you'll never see daylight again as long
as you live. Now git.
On his way out of town, Johnny stops one
last time at Bleeker's Cafe for coffee.
He is unable to speak to Kathie, though
she is sitting at the far end of the
counter. Instead, he places the trophy
down on his end of the counter, pushes
it toward her and smiles. She returns
the smile. And then he is gone, riding
his bike back to the same highway that
he entered on.
